Sister Mary Cyprian Kemper, 1915-2012: Notre Dame nun spent lifetime helping others

Sister Mary Cyprian Kemper, a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame for more than 70 years who spent her lifetime caring for others, died Thursday at Rosary Care Center in Sylvania. She was 96.

A patient in the care center for the last several days, she had been in declining health for several years, Sister Mary Patricia Snyder said. Sister Patricia didn’t know the cause of death.

Sister Cyprian’s religious life with the Sisters of Notre Dame was devoted to domestic service at parishes throughout the Diocese of Toledo. She assisted in cooking, cleaning, laundry, sewing, and anything else involving homemaking. “She was the kind of person who drew things together in the things she did,” Sister Patricia said.

“She did what was needed to be done wherever it was needed to be done. She was always helping someone out. She was a wonderful person to have around.”

She most recently had been living in the Sisters of Notre Dame Provincial Center.

One of seven children, Sister Cyprian was born Anna Louise Kemper in 1915 in Alabama. Her father, Frank Kemper, who was a farmer, moved his family to Fort Recovery, in west central Ohio, when she was a young girl.

She attended grade school and began high school in Fort Recovery but had to drop out to help earn money for her family during the Great Depression.

She worked in the kitchen at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Norwood, Ohio, near Cincinnati. After the seminary cut staff and she lost her job, she helped take care of the sick and provided family care. She helped out a motherless family for a year before entering the Sisters of Notre Dame in 1936.

Sister Patricia said she chose the Toledo-based convent after her father’s cousin who had joined the order suggested it. “She decided that she was going to write to the relative, who encouraged her to see our community,” she said.

Sister Cyprian professed her final vows on Aug. 16, 1939. In northwest Ohio she served at St. Joseph, Crestline; St. Joseph, Monroeville; Sacred Heart, Bethlehem; St. John, Delphos; St. Wendelin, Fostoria; St. Joseph, Fremont; St. Paul, Norwalk, and St. Mary, Sandusky.

Among the Toledo-area parishes where she provided care were Gesu, St. Mary, and St. Louis as well as Notre Dame Academy.

Sister Patricia said she assisted in the kitchen at Lial Convent in Whitehouse from 1983 to 2003.

Skilled in sewing, Sister Cyprian enjoyed quilting. “She loved to make aprons and potholders,” Sister Patricia said.

Visitation is to be Monday from 2 to 8 p.m. in the Sisters of Notre Dame Provincial Center, where sharing of memories is to begin at 7 p.m. The funeral liturgy is to be celebrated Tuesday at 5 p.m. in the Provincial Center Chapel. Arrangements are being handled by the Urbanski Funeral Home.

Tributes are suggested to the Sisters of Notre Dame.

— Mark Reiter